


Five Little Sparks

by capalxii



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2229069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor might like a bit of bossy, and it takes a few times for Clara to realize.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Little Sparks

Though it hadn’t taken Clara all that long to figure out, in retrospect, she probably should have figured it out sooner.

The first time a spark had been lit—to be fair to her, she had been thinking of other things. Namely, not being devoured raw. The bickering, the snapping, the back and forth where the Doctor made sarcastic little remarks to her and she threw them right back, were all secondary to the fact that they had managed to land on a planet where the caves were carnivorous and their innocent little spelunking adventure had turned into a “please, mountain, don’t eat us” adventure instead.

The first time that spark had been lit, she’d passed it off as the Doctor reacting to stress and her reacting as well. That was all. Extinguish the spark before it could turn into anything else, she thought, this face is just snotty sometimes.

*

The second time, there hadn’t been any such life or death situation. The second time, she had decided that, instead of running for their lives, they would have a movie night. Or, rather, she turned to him and said, “I’m having a movie night.”

He was standing expectantly in the doorway of the TARDIS (which was, of course, parked in her flat in the most obnoxiously inconvenient way possible), and glowered at her as though she had not only grown new heads but as though those new heads had insulted his mother or possibly his ship. “Movie night?”

Clara tucked her legs up under her on the sofa and brought her mug of tea closer. “The Princess Bride. I’m tired and sore, Doctor, I’m not going anywhere for at least a week.”

“Pitiful,” he grumbled. “Humans are far too weak, I don’t know why I bother with you.”

“Rather have a Sontaran companion?” she asked. “Bet they could keep up with you. Mind, you’d constantly be thinking of jacket potatoes.” She smothered a smirk as he glowered some more and mentally flailed at the notion.

“Better than constantly thinking of-” He stopped mid-sentence and flapped a hand at her.

With a shrug, Clara smiled and reached for the remote. “If you’re staying, take your boots off. I won’t have you tracking any alien mud into the carpet.”

“Oh, but earth mud would be fine, I suppose? Typical.”

“Take your boots off.”

She didn’t have to look as she felt the sofa dip with a sigh, and heard the shuffle of leather and rubber as the Doctor did as he was told. If something about it felt a little warmer than normal—well, she was about to watch her go-to comfort movie and had managed to get the Doctor to stop his sour whining for a moment. Feeling good about her night was completely justified.

*

The third time, she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed, though probably for all the wrong reasons.

It wasn’t her fault; the Doctor had managed to land them miles from her flat, she was still amped up from the run-in they’d just had against a platoon of lost and stranded Cybermen, and she was set to explode when he made a single comment about how it really wasn’t a big deal that she’d have to take a bus home, honestly, she was acting like he’d forgotten where Heathrow was or something—

So she’d turned on him. In the middle of the street. A finger jabbed into his chest, her face as close to his as possible (really, closer to his neck than anything else—did he really have to be that tall? She spat that question at him as well), shoulders squared as she listed out every little thing he’d done or not done that had gone beyond inconveniencing her as they had tried not to die over the previous few hours. And really, it had been her actions, not his, that had ended up saving them, so the least he could do was drop her a few short feet from her tub, where she could have a soak and a glass of wine and relax for a bit. She was loud. She was louder than someone her size should physically be capable of being.

But it wasn’t the people staring that had finally made her stop. It wasn’t even the little smirk tugging at the corners of the Doctor’s mouth, or the way his sky-colored eyes had darkened like storm clouds, lids half-dropping and brows relaxing as he looked down at her. It was, in the end, the way her heart was racing, and the way she’d wanted to press her entire hand against his chest and shove him against a wall and that’s where her brain finally stopped her from continuing.

She was almost embarrassed enough that she didn’t notice the look on his face, like he’d wanted her to press her hand to his chest too. But she said nothing, and instead turned and started stalking to where she thought the bus station might be.

*

“You like this.”

The fourth time, she’d been prepared. He was trying to rile her up now. And it could have been easy for him to do so; after all, she had only recently figured out what he was up to, she had only recently figured out it was the same as tugged ponytails except from a two thousand year old alien instead of a ten year old boy, and she was kicking herself for having been so oblivious.

But instead, she sat in his wingback chair, crossed her legs at the ankle, waited for him to show up in the console room, and when he came in with his usual commentary about how she’d break his favorite chair if she kept sitting in it, she said, “You like this.”

The Doctor blustered at her. And oh could this face bluster; the curled eyebrows and the almost natural glare made it so easy, and his voice, deep and rough and rolling, didn’t hurt. He could sound and look like thunder when he wanted, but Clara was used to that by now. “I do not like this. I don’t like anything. Get out of my chair.”

“Pretty sure you do like it,” she said. “Getting under my skin. You said it a long time ago, I’m brilliant on adrenaline.”

“Yes, you’re brilliant against people who want to kill you,” he said. He glared up at her. “It’s not something I like against myself.”

“Hmm.” She got out of his chair and walked down the steps towards him. “Except I think you do.”

The Doctor took a step back as she got closer. “And what makes you think that?”

With a smile, Clara reached up and poked his cheek. “You’re blushing.”

He scowled and covered the spot she’d touched with his own hand, as though offended by his own face. “Nonsense. I don’t blush. And if my skin is pink, it’s only because you get my blood pressure up.”

Clara arched an eyebrow at that. “Oh?”

“Yes—No. I don’t-” He bumped backwards into the console. “There’s nothing to like. You’re not likable.”

If she hadn’t been so sure of herself, she might have stopped. But Clara was fairly certain she’d read the situation right, and so when she got into his personal space, she asked with some confidence, “Do you remember that time in the street?”

“There have been lots of times in the street. You’re always on streets.”

“The time I started yelling at you, after the Cybermen,” she said. “I started yelling at you. You—” She poked his chest and grinned up at him. “Started smiling.”

“Did not,” he said. But it was a weak response, only half protesting, and his face was doing that thing again, that heavy-lidded, relaxed thing where he actually managed to look somewhat content even as she was getting in his face. “I hate when you yell.”

She nodded and stepped back. “Okay. Maybe you’re right. I’ll try not to get angry at you anymore.”

The way his face fell for a moment before he could school it back into that perpetual scowl told her everything she needed to know.

*

In the end, it was CCTV that did him in. Clara lived in the land of ever-present security cameras. It wasn’t to be avoided, when they patched into the system to try and find an invisible creature wreaking havoc across London, and they saw themselves bickering as usual.

Except Clara had been searching through a storage bin and the Doctor had been behind her, so she hadn’t, until watching the gray, slightly distant video, seen his expression. She knew they’d been squabbling over something, but she couldn’t remember what, and she wasn’t sure it mattered, because really all she could focus on now was that little smile that had passed over his face, and the almost shy way he held himself even as she could see him responding back to her with words that had to have been acidic and hard.

In the console room, in the present, Clara looked over her shoulder to see the Doctor standing behind her and studiously avoiding looking in her direction. Pink was creeping up his neck and edging around his ears and she knew that he was seeing the same thing on the screen that she was. She nudged him in the ribs and said, “Focus,” and he coughed and took a cleansing breath and cleared his throat and murmured something in agreement—

But that was the fifth time, and when it was all over and the day was saved, Clara let that little spark carry her until her hands were wrapped around his wrists and her thumbs were tracing circles over his pulse points and she was murmuring against his neck, “I’m the boss,” and he swallowed and nodded and tried to reply, “As you wish,” but mostly just mumbled something a bit incoherent.


End file.
